A Century of Genocide: Utopias of Race and Nation

Caption

“When utopian ideals turn deadly—how race, nation, and totalitarianism fuel genocide.”

 Summary

In A Century of Genocide, historian Eric D. Weitz offers a sweeping comparative study of four major genocidal regimes of the twentieth century: the Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin, Nazi Germany, Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, and Serbia during the Bosnian War.

Weitz demonstrates how authoritarian states seeking racial or national utopias increasingly relied on systemic violence against targeted groups as political expediency turned ideological zeal into mass murder.

Drawing on trial records, eyewitness memoirs, novels, poetry, and archival sources, Weitz constructs gripping narratives of purges, extermination campaigns, and ethnic cleansing—showing how ideological visions backed by state power transformed neighbors into killers.

The core argument reveals a disturbing pattern: in times of severe crisis, regimes driven by racial or national ideologies cast entire populations as existential threats. Once mobilized by state propaganda, ordinary citizens became complicit in ritualized violence disabling populations believed to be obstacles to utopia.

Why It Matters

This book offers insightful cross-case analysis of genocide’s structural roots. By exploring how race and nationhood were weaponized across diverse political systems, Weitz reframes the Holocaust not as an isolated atrocity, but a model for comparative understanding—and a warning for future prevention.